Quick Online Tips » Tools

The War Between Mediafire and Rapidshare

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:11:58 +0000

Guest post by Akif
Have you ever heard of Mediafire or Rapidshare? You may have already used them and downloaded many GBs of stuff. These websites offer something called “one-click file storage”. One-click file hosting is an internet based service that allows users to easily upload whatever they want, except copyrighted materials, from their hard drives or from another similar file hosting provider (called remote upload). This is usually free or very cheap.

These sites have many users utilising their services every day. So I thought it would be a great idea to explain these websites further for people who are curious to learn more. In this article I will explain some of the features of Mediafire and Rapidshare and compare them.

There are a few popular one-click file storage services, the market leader right now is Rapidshare. Rapidshare.com is a German one-click storage website operating from Sweden and financed by paid Premium members. They still offer a free service to non-premium users with some restrictions. A non-premium user cannot upload more than 100Mb of files. The user is then supplied with a URL where the file can be downloaded which allows anyone to download the uploader’s file.

Another popular one-click web hosting site Mediafire started up in 2006 and is located in Texas, USA. The domain Mediafire.com has received plenty of internet user’s attention in a short time because of its rather few limitations for non-premium users compared to similar service providers.

Mediafire vs. Rapidshare

Comparison of Traffic:

According to the Compete.com study, Mediafire gets 1 visitor for each 2 Rapidshare visitors. The figures are misleading though. Lets see how many links there are on the internet for each site.

Link Counts:

All the Mediafire links on the internet: 17.900.000
All the Rapidshare links on the internet: 140.000.000

According to Google search results Rapidshare has over 140 million incoming links on the internet although Mediafire only has approximately 18 million links. So why – according to Compete.com results – does Mediafire seem much more popular than the Google results suggest? As I mentioned before, Mediafire’s rather few limitations attracted many more downloaders than it would if it has the same restrictions as Rapidshare. Also, Rapidshare encourages their users to share more Rapid links with their point system.

Are you wondering why I searched “Mediafire.com/?”? Because all the download links from Mediafire.com are in the same format which starts with “Mediafire.com/?”. The same is also currently true for Rapidshare links, which start “rapidshare.com/files”. Of course, a forum/blog poster may link to the file with another name, or the same links may have been shared more than once. Also note that Google results are not constant, you might be reading this post a while after I wrote it. Ignore this for now thought because we are just making a comparison.

What is Rapidshare Point System?

Rapidshare started a service called Collector’s Zone. This Zone allows users to gain free membership and some gifts. The more your links are downloaded the more points you will gain. Users are able to gain 1 point for each successful download as long as the file is larger than 1MB and the downloader generated less then 5 points in the last hour. This system though has also caused some unusual uploading habits; Users started to make 100MB files to 120MB just to bump up their link count (from 1 to 2) and to upload files which are already available on the Rapidshare servers. Despite this Rapidshare didn’t give up their promotion system. By contrast Mediafire has no promotion system for their users and this has prevented file uploads from Mediafire fans who always use Mediafire to download their files for free.

Conclusion:

Each service provider has their own upsides and downsides. Mediafire has less restrictions for free users like allowing download accelerators (something which is very rare among similar web hosting providers). Rapidshare use collector’s zone to increase their available link count while focusing their attention improving the experience for Premium users.

Guest article by Akif from Mediafire Search, which offers online search for Mediafire.com links. You can also write a guest article and share valuable insights with our readers.

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How to Unfollow All on Twitter?

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:05:42 +0000

Do you want to remove everyone you’re following on twitter? Now there is a powerful mass unfollow Twitter tool that promises to remove all people you are following in minutes.

So why would you want to unfollow all people Twitter? On Twitter, when someone follows you, you follow back to reciprocate the gesture. If you are in the Twitter followers number game, then you could end up following thousands of people, not knowing who they are. This will lead to hundreds of Direct messages, spam and this will not let you follow people you know, all the while filling your Twitter page with Tweets you do not want to read. So you just want to start anew… its better than deleting your Twitter account.

Want to make a fresh start? John Chow has launched his new tool called UnfollowAll – but remember, it is irreversible so be absolutely sure what you are doing.

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5 Free Programs to Manage Windows Clipboard

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:52:44 +0000

Guest post by Aseem Kishore.
Looking for free Windows Clipboard mangers? The Windows clipboard is probably the most under-recognized feature of the entire Windows family, yet it’s probably used the most often. In this post, I will give you my list of the 5 most useful clipboard manager tools that will help you increase productivity.

Best Free Clipboard Managers for Windows

1. Ditto – Ditto is an open source extension to the standard Windows Clipboard. You can store text, images, HTML, or any custom formatted content onto the clipboard. It has a simple and easy to use interface and a lot of cool features. For example, you can search previous copy entries and you can also keep multiple clipboards from multiple computers in sync with each other! And the data is encrypted when sent over the network. Even better! It also uses a database backend, so accessing and storing clipped content is super fast. Overall, it’s one of my favorites.

2. xNeat – This little program is really tiny! It weighs in at only 644KB! If you want something that will let you store more items in your clipboard and not eat up very much RAM, then xNeat is the clipboard manager for you. Of course, it’s not as fancy as Ditto, basically allowing you to bring up a menu with a list of all the items you have copied to the clipboard. You can setup hotkey also to make the copying and pasting very efficient.

3. Clipboard Manager – If you love using the Sidebar in Windows Vista and Windows 7, then you’re going to like clipboard manager. It’s actually a Windows Live Gallery gadget. Since it’s a gadget, it runs in the Windows Sidebar and lets you manage your clips from the sidebar itself, which is pretty neat. The copied items show up in a nice list that is also styled just like your sidebar.

4. Ten Clips – Another lightweight and easy to use clipboard manager is Ten Clips. Everything can be controlled by hotkeys, so you never have to use the mouse. If you work with any kind of data where you are always copying and pasting between programs, Ten Clips will make it much easier. It’s main standout feature is that you can quickly paste “purified” text, which means it removes all formatting and paste in uppercase or lowercase.

5. PasteCopy.NET – Though this program requires the .NET Framework to be installed, it works really well on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003/2008. It also is the only clipboard manager in the list to support multiple languages. It has some cool features like auto convert of HTML to RTF or TXT and auto convert of RTF to TXT. What’s really cool, though, is that you can mouse over and see a preview of the actual clipped item. It also has an export and print function built in.

Are you using another clipboard manager that I didn’t mention here? If so, post in the comments! Enjoy!

Aseem Kishore is a blogger and Internet entrepreneur who blogs at Online Tech Tips and Help Desk Geek about technology, software, and computers. You can also write a guest article on QOT and share your tips and tools.

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Convert Your Blogger Blog to Book Easily

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:17:10 +0000

How can you convert your Blogger blog into a printed book and sell it to make extra money online? Google has partnered with Blog2Print and now offers this service at very reasonable prices.

There are a lot of customization options so that you get exactly the book you want. You can select all your articles to be added, or choose a date range for weeks or months. Then choose if you want to include or exclude article comments. There are a range of pre-selected book cover designs or you can upload your own cover design. Complete it by writing your own introduction text.

Remember you need to be on Google Blogger for this to work and you will have to enable full text feeds to grab all your content. Start by simply entering your url and sit back.

So how much does you new blog book cost? A 20-page softcover Blog Book will cost $14.95, while the Hardcover costs $24.95. For every extra page, you pay 35 cents! So if you have a huge blog, then keep the rising price in mind. However, you can grab your blog book PDF for only $7.95!

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10 Most Useful Free Twitter Tools for Bloggers

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:20:38 +0000

I present to you my list of 10 most useful free Twitter tools for bloggers that we use daily and find of the most practical use in our blogging routine. I am sure you too would want to grab all these tools for your blog. Check them out.

Best Twitter Tools for Bloggers

1. Twitterfeed – This amazing tool will let you publish updates from any RSS feed to your Twitter account. You can decide how frequently you want Twitterfeed to check your feed updates and how many updated articles to post to Twitter so that you dont overwhelm your twitter followers with tweets. If you follow us on Twitter, you know we direct our blog feed, photoblog feed, new jobs feed, delicious feed all via Twitter feed and keep updating our Twitter account automatically.

2. Tweetdeck - I know there are lots of Twitter desktop clients out there. For one fact, Twitstats says Tweetdeck is the most popular Twitter client in the market. Next it allows you to keep control of multiple Twitter profiles and keep regular track of your tweets, profile mentions, replies and direct messages – all on one screen. For me, it is the best way to keep using Twitter like a pro. Another popular alternative is Twhirl.

3. Twitpic – Simply put, TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter. Now most popular Twitter clients have inbuilt support for Twitpic. This a valuable addition to make your tweets interesting. If you want to share videos, its worth taking a look at Twiddeo or Vidly.

4. Tweetmeme Button – this nifty button has emerged as the most popular way to get your articles retweeted. Supporting various blogging platforms and websites, a Tweetmeme button is the best way to get retweeted and make your article go viral across Twitter for extra site traffic. We use the Tweetmeme Wordpress plugin on our blog and you can spot the green retweet button on this page and our feed.

5. Twitter Counter - is a statistics tools which allows you to show off your Twitter followers count on your blog. It will also show you how rapidly your followers are increasing (or decreasing!) over the week or months. See how our Twitter follower counts looks like. You can also add their Twitter Remote widget to your blog sidebar for more interaction. If you really want to look for the most popular twitter users, catch them Twitterholic.

6. Wickett Twitter Widget – As seen on many blogs on WordPress.com, it displays tweets from a Twitter account in the sidebar of your blog. It is by far the easiest, lightest and best way to add Tweets to Wordpress. Here are more tools to integrate Twitter with Wordpress.

7. Twitter Search Widget - Official Twitter widget which provides a cool custom interface to display your own profile search results in your sidebar. An excellent way to show how popular you are on Twitter as hundreds of your profile mentions and replies scroll across your blog every second. There is an official profile widget also if that suits your need better. Here is an official Twitter badge for Blogger.

8. Twibbon – lets you add a logo of your website or a cause you support to your twitter profile avatar. This also enables your supporters to add the same logo to their profiles and show support for your blog or cause and is great to develop a community of supporters and get lots of publicity.

9. Twitterberry – is a popular Twitter client for Blackberry mobile phones. It helps me stay connected with my Twitter account anywhere in the world and on the move. I can access my Twitter followers, get replies and post tweets without my computer. My friends with Iphone and ipod Touch will like Twitterific or Twitterfon. Other mobile phone users can check the official mobile version of Twitter.

10. Twitbin – is a firefox extension that allows you to keep up with all of your Twitter conversations right from your browser sidebar. This really helps you stay connected with your followers while you are busy blogging. Or open Twitter 100 in a tab and keep following latest tweets from 100 followers on one screen.

What are your most useful tools which you use on a daily basis? Post in comments and I will add to the article. Image by mark.benton

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How to Access Blocked Websites and Bypass Filters

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:30:13 +0000

Guest post by Elisabeta Ghidiu.
How can you access blocked sites and cross web filters? Many people deal with controlled access to specific websites. This happens especially in some countries where Internet censorship is applied and people’s access to specific websites is restricted. Also, these days more and more institutions, schools and companies are implementing this type of software on their computers. But Internet filtering is not a problem because there are many tools and methods that enable you to bypass filters and to unblock websites.

Anonymous Web Proxy

One of the most popular methods is using a web proxy. An anonymous proxy server is an intermediate between your computer and the server you are requesting the information. Although this is an easy way it’s not the safest one. Even if the server does not have your information, the intermediate has it so you are not completely anonymous. The advantage of this method is that there are many free web proxies available over the Internet.

The most known resource for web proxies is Proxy.org. The list contains proxies all over the world, it’s periodically updated and provides link to specific web proxies in a random order. Due to the fact that the proxies are listed randomly, the chance of getting an over used proxy is considerably decreased. Other important resources of free web proxies are: Hide My Ass, Anonymouse.org, and Proxify.co.uk.

Hide IP address software

The second option is to use hide IP address applications. There are simple applications where with a simple click you can enable anonymity, or complex application that allows you to add manually proxies into the list, which will allow you to test proxies in advance and even clean cookies and temporary internet files. To be sure that the application suites your needs you should test the trial first and see how many proxies they have and from which countries.

The most known free hide IP address application is TOR Project. The application suits best to advanced Internet users because the configuration is not very simple. Other applications that are easy to use by anyone are: Ultra Surf, Anonymous Surfing, IP Privacy and Not My IP.

VPN connections

A third way used to unblock web sites is through a VPN. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes. A great advantage of these systems is that they use encryption and other security systems so only authorized users can access the network and the data cannot be tracked. Hotspot Shield is the most used these days and it’s 100% free. It creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and our Internet gateway blocking snoopers, hackers, ISP’s, or other person from viewing your web browsing activities.

An important aspect that users must take in consideration is that before changing the IP address you must know what type of address your computer has. If you have a static IP address than you have to call your ISP and ask them to change it while if you have a dynamic IP address than you can apply any of the methods above.

This guest post was written by Elisabeta Ghidiu, who is interested in online privacy and security solutions. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite web services. Photo credit like oh so zen.

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Parents Can Gift Free PayPal Student Accounts to Teens

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:38:35 +0000

Now parents can gift their teenage children free Paypal student accounts and grant them limited financial freedom. These new Paypal Student Accounts are actually sub-accounts set up by parents, which enable teens to safely use money and buy stuff they need.

Parents can keep full account of all money spent by their kids, and can set the spending limit they want. Parents can maintain upto four PayPal subaccounts for their teens, and transfer money on a one-time or recurring basis. Parents can easily check account balances, get low balance alerts and even transfer money to their teens’ account via their mobile phones.

Teens learn how to manage money and can easily shop online with PayPal and in stores using the Student Card. They can check their account balance and easily request money from their parents via simple text message from their mobile phones.

Get a Paypal Student Account today and teach your children how to manage money. Remember The Student Account is currently available in the United States only.

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Best Practices And Tools For Optimizing Images

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:45:13 +0000

Guest post by Akmal Wardak.
What are best tools and practices for optimizing images? With massive demand for the consumption of content with the emergence of blogging, more and more web masters are paying attention to generating traffic from secondary sources of content such as videos and images.

We are all aware of the importance of incorporating images into blog posts for better readership and engagement, that being said, today I will be looking at some of the best practices for optimizing your images for faster performance and better search engine rankings.

To better categorize this article, I will be looking at two major sections of image optimization:

Optimizing images for faster performance
Optimizing images for better search engine rankings

Optimizing images for faster performance

There are certain things you can do to optimize your images and make sure they load faster. The following are a set of tools and practices you should consider using to enhance your images for faster performance:

1. Don’t scale images in HTML – Don’t use a bigger image than you need just because you can set the width and height in HTML. If you need then your image (yellow-balloon.jpg) should be 100×100px rather than a scaled down 400×400px image.

2. Use PNG instead of GIF – Convert any GIF image you may be using to PNG format and there should be a saving in the size amount, resulting in faster load times. Most of the times this practice is hesitated by web developers due to the limited support in older browsers, but old browsers are old now.

The only problem could be variable transparency, which is supported by neither formats. So basically whatever a GIF can do, a palette PNG (PNG8) can do too (except for animation). You can use a free web based image converter to convert your GIFs to PNGs.

3. Use small favicons – If you are not familiar with favicons, they are small 16×16 pixel images that represent your site (it can be found beside your site’s URL in the address bar and bookmarks) and they are located in your site’s root directory as favicon.ico files.

Favicons are extremely important because they are requested before any other components of your website by the browser. So guess what happens when you have a big sized favicon or even worse, no favicon? the browser is 404′d. You don’t want to 404 a browser or make it struggle loading your favicon, so it is preferred to have your favicon reduced to a size under 1K. You can use this free web based Favicon Generator to make yourself a nice favicon.

Optimizing images for better search engine rankings

With most of the talent driving competition to keyword industry, it is not surprising that ranking for desirable keywords is a difficult task these days. However you can still rank high enough for very competitive keywords in a slightly different but very lucrative environment – Google Image Search.

There are a lot of great articles about better image optimization for search engines by other authors, however I will show you some great tools to take full advantage of your precious images. Here we go:

1. Use batch file re-namers - You know it is advised to have the keywords you are targeting as your image names. For example, “widescreen-wallpaper.jpg” is better than “image.jpg” if you are targeting the keyword “widescreen wallpaper”. But what if you have 100 images? you don’t want to waste time renaming each image file separately. So do yourself a favor and find a batch file renaming program that will do the job automatically.

Windows users can do this with Windows Explorer (here is how) and Mac users can use Name Mangler to batch rename files. If you are finding it difficult to use Name Mangler, I have written an extensive tutorial on how to use it.

2. SEO Friendly Images WP Plugin – As the name suggests, this plugin will automatically update all of your images with proper Alt and Title attributes. If your images do not have ALT and TITLE already set, SEO Friendly Images will add them according the options you set. Download plugin .

3. Media Library Gallery WP Plugin - This plugin will automatically create a gallery for every image you have stored in your media library. With this plugin you will create a browsable gallery for your users and more indexable content to search engines. Say hello to Google Image Search traffic! Download plugin.

4. Smush.it WP Plugin - Smush.it uses optimization techniques specific to image format to remove unnecessary bytes from image files. It is a completely safe procedure, meaning it optimizes images without changing their look or visual quality. This practice is also confirmed by Yahoo Extreme Web Performance team. Download plugin.

Conclusion

Images are often under rated by many web masters in terms of not being significant traffic generators, however, I personally have been taking full advantage of images I use in my site by taking some time optimizing them for better performance. That is why Image Search is my primary referral traffic generator. Since there is no intense competition for image rankings, you can easily rank well for highly desired keywords.

Some might say “Google Image Search, who cares?”

But, once you understand just how potent Google image search really is, then I guarantee that you will be first in line to take advantage of the associated benefits. If you have any additional tips or tools, please share them in the comments below. I will love to hear your thoughts.

Guest blogger Akmal Wardak writes on AkmalWardak.com – A blog about social media, software reviews, how-to tutorials and Wordpress tips. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks

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28 Free Online File Format Conversion Tools

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:04:13 +0000

Guest post by Srikanth.
The following file conversion sites allows you to convert files of the most common and frequently used file formats. They support almost all kinds of file formats with regard to audio, video, document and image.

Multiple File Format Conversion

1) Zamzar.com - Performs online file conversion in a fast and easy manner. No need of registration and it sends the converted files right to your email inbox.

2) Media-Convert – This website includes online file conversion along with a variety of options. Provides local file conversion, conversion from URL, file hosting, website screenshot and sending the converted file to mobile. It also provides a host of advanced settings while converting files.

3) Youconvertit – Allows you to convert all kinds of media files including archives. Allows you to choose more than one input file at a time for conversion.

Video File Format Conversion

4) Vixy – This website contains an online FLV converter. It allows you to convert a flash video or an FLV file to MPEG4 (AVI/MOV/MP4/MP3/3GP) file online. This application is open source.

5) Converttube - It allows you to directly download videos from the internet to a mobile, PC, iPod or PSP. It also provides various options for the output format of the file.

6) Vidtomp3 - This online tool allows you to convert video, music video, Mega Video, MySpace video, Google Video or YouTube video into mp3 format for your mp3 player or mobile phones.

7) Cellsea - An online video converter tool to convert video files in the required format.

8) Media Converter - A web based video conversion utility that supports conversion of files even from YouTube. This tool facilitates uploading a media file directly from web portals.

9) Movavi - This online video converter tool helps to convert multiple files. The maximum file size it allows is 100 MB. This tool has a special option of merging all the video files into a large movie.

Image File Format Conversion

10) Converticon - The online application allows you to convert ICO, PNG, GIF, and JPEG formats to a better quality PNG or ICO files. The interface is simple and easy to use.

11) Vector Magic - This website converts bitmap images to clean vector art, using auto-tracing software. It allows you to save time and get your images ready to cut, embroider or print.

12) ConvertICO – This tool facilitates conversion of ICO files to PNG files and PNG files to ICO files. You can upload files either by specifying a URL or by browsing a file that is on your PC.

13) Image Converter - This online tool converts one image format into another image format. Some of the image formats which it supports for conversion are bmp, dib, epi, eps, gif, jpc, jpeg, pcd, pcx, pdb, pgm, pict, png, tga and so on.

14) Image Optimizer - This online tool not only helps us to convert image files from one format to another but also helps us to optimize images to load quickly. The maximum limit for file size is 300 KB.

PDF File Conversion Tools

15) Expresspdf - This website provides online tools for exclusively converting Web pages, Microsoft Word documents and Microsoft Excel documents to PDF documents.

16) Pdfonline - This website provides a variety of online tools to work with PDF files exclusively. Merging two PDF files, Doc file to PDF, PDF to Word, Web to PDF and PDF service for iPhone are some of the tools provided here.

17) Pdftoword - This online tool helps us convert PDF documents to DOC or RTF files accurately. It also allows us to re-use the PDF content in Excel, Open Office, Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. This conversion tool tries to maintain the formatting and image fidelity of the page to the maximum extent.

18) Htm2pdf - This online tool facilitates you to convert HTML files to PDF files in just one click. There are two options for conversion, one of them is conversion of web pages and the other one is converting raw HTML code.

19) Neevia - This online converter allows you to create PDF documents or image documents from the most commonly and frequently used file formats. The upload limit per file is 1 MB.

20) Freepdfconvert - This online and interactive PDF converter and document creator is quick and reliable. Converts web pages, graphic images, MS-Office, Open Office,Vector graphic file formats and other file formats to PDF.

21) Kinati to PDF converter – The PDF converter here allows conversions for all kinds of users, from an executive professional to a student. Allows to upload a document up-to 15 MB.

22) Lettos - This is an online conversion tool used to convert files from DOC, XLS and PPT to PDF format.

23) Pdf-O-Matic - A simple, fast and reliable tool to convert Web pages into PDF documents. It creates a PDF document within seconds, once you specify a URL inside the provided field on the website.

24) PDF4u - This site provides an online service to convert Word, PowerPoint, and Postscript documents to PDF. The conversion is done in three easy steps. The file size should be 30K or less to avail the free service.

25) Primo Online – Online service that provides a super fast way of converting documents and images to PDF files. Supports conversion of more than 300 file formats.

26) PS to PDF Converter – Converts a Post-script compatible file to a PDF compatible file. This application is suitable for light and moderate users.

27) RSS2PDF Converter - This online tool allows us to convert a web page or online RSS into a PDF document.

28) Text2Pdf - Converts any given text into a Portable Document Format(PDF) file. Contains a large text area to copy the text. This tools is based on Sanface software.

Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools.

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5 Best Tools for Online Freedom at Work

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:53:06 +0000

Guest post by Dav.
How can you get online freedom at work places? Usually work environments are restrictive and keep tab on your online activities. While at work, IT guys try to prevent you from indulging in online activities deemed “un-productive”. There are number of web tools that allow easy access to blocked stuff without coming under IT department radar (hopefully).

Get Online Freedom at Work

Access your email, webpage, read ebooks and even Twitter at work using the following:

1. Read ebooks at Work - If you love reading ebooks, then head over to ‘Read at Work’ website. You can read ebooks without drawing any suspicious attention or getting caught. It allows you to access ebooks in the form and look of Microsoft Powerpoint (Powerpont!). While you enjoy reading ebooks others will think “you are working damn hard on your next presentation”. Keep everyone happy and away while you read ebooks of different types like: black comedy, classics, short stories etc.

2. Twitter at Work - Can’t get off Twitter addiction at work? You can Twitter with ease within Microsoft Excel spreadsheet window without catching anyone’s eye. SpreadTweet is an Adobe Air based application that allows you to use Twitter disguised as a spreadsheet. You can try the online version or install the offline version depending on the Microsoft Office version you are using among: Office OSX, Office 2003 and Office 2007 (Windows).

3. Share favorite webpages - Just found an interesting webpage you want to share with a co-worker? Instead of sending webpage link, why not send the whole webpage via email using Email the Web. Enter webpage URL, sign in using Google account, preview the webpage and quickly send it to your friends.

4. Open Gmail at work - Gmail addicts love to try different methods to access email at work while IT guys try hard to block every such method. Among various ways to access Gmail at work, using iGoogle is the easiest. Go to iGoogle homepage, login to see Gmail messages in a small box on the right side.

5. Instant Messenging at Work - There are number of web based ways to access instant messengers like Meebo. However, such websites are most likely blocked by IT guys in the office. You can try newer (and fairly unknown to IT guys) web based messenger access service like webuzz.im. It is JavaScript based online web instant messenger that helps you chat with your friends on Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger or AIM.

This is a guest post by Dav from TechF5 Refreshing Tech which features handy tips, tricks, guides and tutorials on basic computing like how to translate & save Wikipedia articles? You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools.